Book: Landscape and Memory by Simon Schama
Recommended by: Joseph, Nonfiction Librarian
This book is a fascinating treatise on the role nature (specifically wood, water, and rock) has played in Western culture. Schama, an Art and history professor at Columbia University, expertly touches on many examples of our environment's influence on our collective memory - everything from Hitler's obsession with the forests of Europe and the battles fought to get Susan B. Anthony on Mount Rushmore, to Western lust for Egyptian obelisks and dance parties held on the massive stumps of California Sequoias in the mid-nineteenth century. This work is also, with its classical layout and type font and its many excellent illustrations, one of the most beautifully designed books I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

The Library will be closed on Thursday, November 25 and Friday, November 26 in recognition of the Thanksgiving holiday. We will also close early, at 5:00 p.m., on Wednesday, November 24. We will resume normal business hours on Saturday, November 27.

Book: Room by Emma Donoghue
Recommended by: Karen, Senior Librarian
Narrator Jack and his mother, who was kidnapped seven years earlier when she was a 19-year-old college student, celebrate his fifth birthday in the 11 foot square converted shed in the kidnapper's backyard - "room." His mother plans a daring escape using Jack. Following his successful dramatic escape, the real story lies in Jack's entry into a new world. Jack's narration of a world so different than the "room" he lived in during his first five years is funny, sad, and riveting. This story of the loving bond between mother and child even in harrowing circumstances is not to be missed.